The Final Years of Marilyn Monroe: The Shocking True Story (29 page)

Excitement was naturally engulfing her when Thursday 17 May finally arrived and it was time for her to dash out of one of Fox’s soundstage doors and embark on the helicopter destined for Los Angeles International Airport. (Contrary to popular belief, actor Peter Lawford was not on board with her.) Besides her baggage and her colleagues, two other items accompanied her. The first was the 1954 book
The Little Engine That Could
, a moralistic children’s story by Watty Piper about positive thinking, a present given to her by Joan Greenson, Ralph’s daughter. The other was a chess piece, a knight extracted from the set she had purchased in Mexico in February. In a confidence-building exercise, Marilyn planned to wrap it in a handkerchief and clutch it as she sang at the gala. Unfortunately she would mislay it sometime during her stay in New York.

Once at the airport, Marilyn, Paula and Pat boarded a flight to New York’s Idlewild Airport where the actress’s rented limousine was waiting to whisk them to her 444 East 57th Street apartment. Shortly after their arrival, Marilyn’s private secretary, May Reis, visited and later that evening, the actress was picked up from her residence by her New York press agent, John Springer, and driven to the nearby Savoy-Plaza Hotel at 767 5th Avenue at East 58th Street, where
Life
magazine columnist Richard Meryman and his assistant, Barbara Villet, were waiting.

Sitting at a table adjacent to the bar, Meryman ordered champagne and informed Marilyn that
Life
wanted to do an in-depth feature on her. Noticing her initial misgivings, he told her it would provide an ideal opportunity to talk unreservedly for the first time about her life, marriages, film bosses, fame and status as a screen icon, and provide a chance to silence the critics who insisted she did not create her own quotes. The actress listened intently while sipping Dom Perignon from her glass. After numerous questions, she warmed to the idea. A suggestion to carry out the interview at her home in Brentwood was agreed by all. Discussions about
when
exactly they should record the piece were interrupted when Marilyn suddenly announced, ‘Peter Lawford is upstairs. Why don’t we drop in on him? He told me to look him up when we reached town.’

The quartet agreed and, after finishing their drinks, walked across to an elevator which carried them up to the tenth floor of the 33-storey building. When they reached the actor’s room, Marilyn knocked on its door. It was opened not by Lawford, but by a young man attired in only a bath towel. Appearing both shocked and embarrassed, the actress politely informed
him, ‘We’re looking for Mr Lawford.’ The man was lost for words. He just stood and stared. He was clearly shocked to find himself facing this world-famous movie star for the very first time while in a state of almost complete undress. Unperturbed, the actress continued, ‘He must be in another room.’ With his eyes still fixed on her, he eventually muttered, ‘Yes, yes. He must be. He must be.’ Marilyn politely thanked the man and the door slammed shut.

As the actress and her three companions began their long walk back up the corridor towards the elevator, she burst into a fit of giggles. ‘He probably thinks he’s drunk,’ she theorised. ‘He’s seeing pink Marilyns.’ The party ventured to the hotel’s reception and enquired about Lawford. The desk clerk confirmed that he had checked into the hotel earlier but was out for the evening. No one bothered questioning whether his reply was the truth or part of a discreet cover-up.

After saying their goodbyes to Meryman and Villet, Springer – assuming she had no plans for the evening – invited Marilyn to join him and his wife for dinner. The actress declined the offer, insisting she was tired after such a long day. But the truth was that she loathed such acts of pity and knew they only ever came about via an inappropriate act of kindness. According to folklore, the actress then retreated to her apartment alone, a scenario she had acted out numerous times before, and forlornly faced an unappetising dinner comprising cold leftovers from her refrigerator. The truth was quite different.

In fact, earlier in the day, shortly after her arrival home, and before the visit of May Reis, Marilyn had called first the Beekman Market and then the A. Fitz & Sons Meat Market, situated three blocks from her home, to order a large quantity of food. The delivery, some of which the actress and her colleagues Newcomb and Strasberg tucked into that night after leaving Springer and his wife, included English muffins, lamb chops, steaks, chicken, artichokes, cucumber, eggs, radishes, strawberry jam, cheddar cheese, corn-on-the-cob, strawberries, endive and milk. A selection of liquor, delivered earlier in the day by Luria’s Wine and Spirits Store at 1217 Madison Avenue, purchased at a cost of $129.85, helped wash down their feast. It was evident Marilyn was not watching her weight or depriving herself in the run-up to the President’s ball.

Friday 18 May got off to a bad start when, shortly before 8am, the actress awoke to receive a ‘Violation of Contract’ note from 20th Century-Fox. The hand-delivered paper, which had originated from the studio’s office in New York, charged her with ‘failure to work’ on her latest picture and warned her of ‘dire consequences’ if she failed to fulfil her obligations to the company. Marilyn was incensed by this. She knew Fox were aware of her intentions to travel and had actually given their blessings. With
indignation filling her head, she soon began her day. Preparing for Kennedy’s show was her
only
concern now.

At 9.30am, the actress and her colleagues stepped out of her apartment, travelled down in the lift and climbed into her waiting, chauffeur-driven limousine, hired once more from Exec-U-Car Inc. at 30 West 60th Street. Their first port of call was to make-up specialist Marie Irvine for a preliminary discussion at her home on Elbertson Street, Long Island. A trip to Monroe’s regular New York hair stylist, Kenneth Battelle, followed. Later that night, at precisely 10pm, back at Marilyn’s apartment, and with both Strasberg and Newcomb watching and supervising, the actress ran through another rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. However, her drama coach was becoming frustrated by it. ‘It keeps getting sexier and sexier,’ she remarked to her daughter, Susan, later that night. ‘If she doesn’t stop, it will be a parody.’

On the day of the concert, Saturday 19 May, the actress was escorted to Madison Square Garden, the gala venue, to participate in rehearsals with the other stars of the show. In charge of the preparations were producer Richard Adler and one of the event’s co-organisers, the legendary English-born ‘party-planner’ Clive David. Set to arrive at 11am, Monroe did not appear until approximately 11.25. ‘Marilyn was late,’ David recalled. ‘She was always late for things. Even though everybody was given a designated time [to attend], it still ran an hour behind schedule.

‘The one artist I dreaded meeting was Maria Callas,’ he continued, ‘because she was known to be the most difficult woman opera had ever known; brilliantly talented but very difficult. I was dreading it. When she arrived in her limousine, I told her we were running behind schedule and she said, “Oh no, oh no.” The air-conditioning inside Madison Square Garden had made it like a giant refrigerator and she said, “I can’t sit in here. I won’t have a voice. Can you find me somewhere that’s not so cold?” So I found her a broom closet and I put her in there for one hour. She was very, very nice to me. [The comedian] Jack Benny was annoyed at being late. He was really angry, in fact. Marilyn arrived plainly dressed for the rehearsal.’ Throughout her two and a half hours at the Garden, Monroe sported dark shades, a white headscarf, a tight-fitting, long-sleeved lime green Pucci blouse and white Capri slacks. At this point, a more grandiose idea for her rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ was being orchestrated. ‘As a gimmick, Richard Adler originally wanted Marilyn up on the top balcony with all the lights in the room surrounding her when she sang,’ David remembered. ‘But it never happened. Marilyn
hated
the idea.’

At approximately 2pm, after delivering a few brief run-throughs of her song with Newcomb by her side, she quickly departed the building,
jumped into her waiting limousine and raced back to her apartment, where final preparations for the gala were
really
about to begin.

Since
Something’s Got To Give
was now seven and a half days behind schedule, no one at Fox believed that Marilyn would be allowed to totally abandon shooting and fly out to the Big Apple. As Henry Weinstein sarcastically joked, ‘It was enough to make Republicans of everyone on the set.’ The incident could not have happened at a worse time for the studio. In New York, on Tuesday 15 May, just two days before Monroe’s departure, at Fox’s annual general meeting, president Spyros P. Skouras faced jeers, cynicism and disdain from a capacity crowd of over 300 shareholders who were angry about the studio’s plummeting stock price, the rising costs of the still unfinished
Cleopatra
and the inflated wages of its star, Elizabeth Taylor. Their fury intensified when Skouras meekly informed them that, in their previous year of business, the company had incurred a loss of $22.5 million. Even an offer to screen excerpts from several of Fox’s newest movies failed to quieten the unruly attendees. ‘We came here on business,’ screamed one irate stockholder, ‘
not
to be entertained.’

Unrest seemed to be everywhere. So, when Marilyn announced to the studio that she was intent on travelling, in turn heaping more delays on the studio, attempts were made to dissuade her from doing so. In the week leading up to her exodus, studio chief Levathes pleaded with her several times not to go. He even firmly declared to everyone concerned that the actress would
not
be permitted to leave.

Such was the seriousness of his declaration that on Friday 11 May a letter was drafted by the studio. In part it read:

Marilyn, as you know we are behind schedule with our picture. We have a great deal of money already invested in it and we cannot afford anymore delays. While I realise that this social function may be important to you, we cannot consent to or acquiesce in your absence and I must, on behalf of 20th Century-Fox, insist that you will be available at our studio to render your services during the week of May 14 to 18 inclusive . . .

Milton S. Gould, one of New York City’s most accomplished litigators, was on the board at 20th Century-Fox at the time, and was also insistent that the actress should remain in Los Angeles and committed to the film. In an interview for the book
The Dark Side Of Camelot
by Seymour H. Hersh, Gould recalled that Attorney General Bobby Kennedy rang him personally and asked him to waive his objection. He told Bobby, ‘Look, General, in no way can we do this. The lady has caused all sorts of kinds
of trouble. We’re way behind budget. I just can’t.’ He continued to say no. Then, according to Gould, Kennedy got very abusive, called him a ‘Jewish bastard’ and slammed down the phone. The Attorney General never apologised for his rude behaviour.

Dean Martin was also angry at Marilyn’s decision to travel. He had reluctantly rejected an invitation to appear at the illustrious event due to his commitments on
Something’s Got To Give
. Additionally, he didn’t wish to be held responsible for throwing an entire crew out of work for two days. George Cukor was another livid at Marilyn’s choice. He told scriptwriter Walter Bernstein he felt helpless in the situation and believed that whatever he or the studio said, she was always going to get her way. The movie’s producer was irate too. ‘She just didn’t have any sense of responsibility or respect for them [the studio bosses],’ Henry Weinstein dejectedly remarked. ‘She had no feeling for them.’

However, Marilyn was uninterested. She had set her heart on singing to the President of the United States and nobody on earth could dissuade her from doing so.

With hindsight, Weinstein admitted that he felt that this was a wasted opportunity and that Fox should have travelled to New York with her and used the trip as a promotional exercise for the movie. Speaking to the studio for a documentary about the film in 1990, he remarked, ‘We should have gone with a sign saying
Something’s Got To Give
instead of worrying about whether she had gone or what the studio thought . . . Immediately, the studio should have been alerted, we should have had our own cameraman there, with her and the President. That’s what you would do. Instead, they said, “How could she go?”’

Of course, the Fox hierarchy
were
aware of and (before shooting had commenced and run into serious trouble)
had
given their blessing to the actress’s trip. In an interview on Tuesday 15 May with movie and television writer Bob Thomas, Marilyn partially confirmed this when she remarked, ‘I told the studio six weeks ago [on Monday 9 April] I was going,’ adding, ‘I consider it an honour to appear before the President of the United States. Besides, I
am
a Democrat.’

But either way, with the film’s leading lady now in the Big Apple and with all viable filming options completely exhausted, work on
Something’s Got To Give
was now completely impossible. It came as no surprise to anyone when a ‘shut down’ sign was tacked on to the doors of Sound Stage 14. In the words of Hollywood columnist Dorothy Manners, ‘The studio had finally thrown in the towel . . . ’

Chapter Seven

The JFK Gala/
Something’s Got To Give
(part two)

Saturday 19 May 1962–Tuesday 12 June 1962

‘M
ost politicians, when they come to New York, make their headquarters at the Waldorf, mine is Madison Square Garden,’ President Kennedy quipped on the afternoon of Saturday 19 May, just hours before his fund-raising gala. Besides the small matter of his impending 45th birthday, the main purpose of the event was to wipe clean the debt left from the Democrats’ 1960 presidential campaign. Fortuitously, it was New York City’s hottest day for five years and, at that time, the hottest May temperature on record. In the late afternoon, it peaked at a blistering 99 degrees.